My voice mail was nearly full the day after the Keith Burris column, “Woodville: Worst little town in Ohio?” was in The Blade on Feb. 15.

The column, indeed, was anything but balanced. The writer said Woodville was a speed trap that “uses shaking down the public as a major revenue source” and that it allowed “a trigger-happy cop to run amok.”

Not surprisingly, many Woodville residents weren’t happy with the column, Keith Burris, or The Blade. “This is just part of The Blade’s vendetta over that [expletive deleted] dog,” one anonymous caller said.

Another, more bafflingly, said, “Damn right we are a speed trap for you jerks, but we have a right to be one.”

So what does your ombudsman think?

Well, for one thing, he thinks it might not be a good idea for Mr. Burris to suffer a car breakdown in Woodville any time soon. But seriously, a column is different from a news story. It is largely the writer’s opinion, and indeed, all of Mr. Burris’ pieces are labeled “commentary.”

This was certainly not a fair-and-balanced appraisal of Woodville and its 2,100 or so citizens, and it wasn’t meant to be.

However, I think Mr. Burris would have been more credible if he had said something like “to be sure, not everyone in Woodville is part of the problem” and then mentioned somebody who was doing right, or some local institution that actually works pretty well.

I also thought that he ought to have cited a little evidence for his charge that Woodville is a speed trap. That wouldn’t have been all that hard to do; the town has an eatery called SpeedTrap Diner. A week after the column, a news story indicated that in 1.2 miles “the speed limit posting changes five times ranging from 55 … to 25 during normal hours.”

Woodville also gets more than 14 percent of its general fund revenues from traffic violations, a higher proportion than other area communities. In other words, there are grounds for calling it a speed trap.

Finally, you don’t have to be a dog lover to think there is something seriously wrong when a policeman shoots a Labrador retriever who is just walking up to him, something that eventually caused the dog to lose a leg.

Granted, Moses’ owners should have been more responsible in taking care of the dog, who wasn’t properly licensed and was allowed to roam along the road, something that is highly dangerous anyway.

But blazing away with a gun at a dog ambling toward you is few people’s idea of farsighted police work. Nevertheless, the officer wasn’t even reprimanded.

Woodville may not be the “worst little town in Ohio.” But it clearly has some odd practices, ones that the newspaper was perfectly right to expose.

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Mike Reinhardt of New Riegel, Ohio, had a problem with a recent story on the proposed new Seneca County courthouse.

“Now that Seneca County is looking to improve the offices of the county court system … how long should the media look at the past instead of looking to the future?”

If you haven’t been following this story long-term, a little background is in order. Three years ago, efforts to save a historic 1884 courthouse failed when the commissioners voted to tear it down.

The Blade editorialized repeatedly in favor of saving the historic Beaux-Arts style building; Mr. Reinhardt was among those who favored tearing it down. Earlier this month, the Seneca County commissioners voted to build a new courthouse where the old one stood.

That led to the Feb. 18 story that irked Mr. Reinhardt: “Commissioners agree to build $8.5 million courthouse.”

The story, by Blade staff writer Vanessa McCray, notes that the estimated cost of building the new courthouse is considerably more than what projections said the cost of saving the old one would have been.

Your ombudsman does think this story reads as if it was written with a biased viewpoint, with some language that is too opinionated for a news story.

After noting that it might have been cheaper to save the old building, the story notes, “None of that mattered to former county commissioners Ben Nutter, a Tiffin firefighter, and Jeff Wagner, a farmer … who were insistent that no county money be used to restore a building that historic preservationist across the county championed.

“They did spend $400,000 in taxpayer money to tear it down.” The harshness of the language does make it seem as if The Blade had a vendetta against the two men, who are now long gone from government.

However, as the facts in the story make perfectly clear, the preservationists had a point. Seneca County opted to destroy a magnificent building designed by famed architect Elijah Myers, when it could have been saved and renovated for a fraction of the cost of building a new building.

The facts were more than enough to make the case that tearing down the courthouse was a devastating move on multiple levels.

The story didn’t need to take an extra dig at those who did it.

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Finally, Joanne Silhanek didn’t like the way The Blade edited an Associated Press story about a beloved police dog in Maine who was euthanized at age 13 after suffering from seizures and arthritis.

An editor evidently changed the word “euthanized” to “killed.”

Ms. Silhanek didn’t like that. “Animals are not killed at the vet and this inappropriate word choice is disrespectful to any animal lover and certainly should never have been used,” she complained to me.

Well, your ombudsman understands her feeling. Sultan, the K9 unit dog in the story, was old and suffering, and putting him out of his misery was probably both the right and the humane thing to do.

However, she is wrong about something. Animals are killed at the vet, and Sultan was one of those. Killed may be a harsh word, but it is far more honest and factual than “put to sleep” or the soft, classical sounding “euthanized.” He was, in fact, killed.

Your ombudsman, again, has no problem with how Sultan was treated. But there is a problem with always prettying up language to hide the real meaning from even ourselves.

Anyone who has a concern about fairness or accuracy in The Blade is invited to write me, c/​o The Blade; 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, 43660, or at my Detroit office: 563 Manoogian Hall, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202; call at 1-888-746-8610; or email me at OMBLADE@aol.com. I cannot promise to address every question in the newspaper, but I do promise that everyone who contacts me with a serious question will get a personal reply. Reminder, however: If you don’t leave me an email address or a phone number, I have no way to get in touch with you.

Jack Lessenberry is a member of the journalism faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former national editor of The Blade.

First Published March 1, 2015, 6:39 a.m.